A/N : This story is a tribute to one of my favourite characters in the Harry Potter series Neville Longbottom.
Neville
When Neville looked down from the teachers table to the the house ones he could see every emotion known to humankind in front of him. But as usual his eyes went to the newest batch of kids, the first year students.
It was easy to spot them among all the other students. Firstly, they were the smallest kids in the whole table. Secondly, they were the ones who were the most fidgety or the most jumpy because of their nervousness.
It was the same for all the other tables except for the Slytherin one. There it was a bit hard to differentiate the first years. They weren't jumpy like the other first years neither were they overwhelmed by everything they saw, or if they were they hid it very well, Neville had to give them that.
But what struck him the most this year was that the batch of kids who came here for the first time yesterday reminded him a lot of his batch. They reminded him of his batch mates and friends. He could relate almost every first year to one of his batch mates. That wasn't hard considering many of them were the children of his friends.
For instance, the brown haired girl, her name was Arya Chase he thought, sitting on the Gryffindor table reminded him a lot of his roommate Seamus Finnigan. She had the same spark in her eyes. But the thing that most strongly reminded him of Seamus was her fascination with pyrotechnics, he knew that because she had accidentally set fire to her book while eating her dinner yesterday. How she did that while eating her dinner and without even touching that book, he didn't know.
The boy Arya was talking to, Ayush, reminded him strongly of Seamus's best friend Dean Thomas. He had the same jet black hair and was tall for an eleven year old. He suspected him to be a muggle born, just like Dean, because he stared awestruck at anything even remotely magical.
Next he saw Albus and Rose chatting with each other on the Gryffindor table. It was weird how much Albus looked like his father Harry. Out of all three children he was the only one to inherit the green eyes Harry had. Though he seemed amiable enough Neville was pretty sure he had a stubborn streak in him just like his mother Ginny. Rose was a mixture of both Ron and Hermione. She had that clever look in her eyes and the curiosity to know about everyone and everything at once that reminded him strongly of his friend Herimione Granger. But the striking red hair and the trademark Weasley freckles across her nose reminded him of his friend and roommate Ronald Weasley.
On the Slytherin table he could easily recognise Scorpius Malfoy. It seemed as if he had inherited all his father's looks and none of his mother's. With the Malfoy white hair and the pale skin he looked a like a Malfoy through and through. But he did not have the frown on his face that he had come to associate with Draco in his first year. Maybe he isn't the bully Draco was in his first year. Too early to tell though.
On the Ravenclaw table he could see two kids sitting next to each other whispering very fast in one another's ear. They reminded him of the his two house mates Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. They looked as if they were exchanging gossip from their reddened cheeks and smiles they thought no one else could see. It just reenforced his belief that they were like Parvati and Lavender.
On the Hufflepuff table he saw a kid with the same greasy hair, upturned nose and the I'm-better-than-you-in-everything look on his face that reminded him strongly of his batch mate or more like a person he did not like, Zacharias Smith. He will look out for this one.
Next to the kid who looked like Zacharias he saw two kids sitting next to each other. The girl reminded him of the ever sweet albeit shy Hannah Abott. She had the same sweet smile for everybody around her and the calm aura which surrounded Hannah. Next to her sat a boy who he thought of as Ernie Macmillan. He had the pompous look on his face that never left Ernie's but he had the feeling that he was as loyal as Ernie was, which was a lot, though he looked a bit too scared and wary for an eleven year old.
He saw a kid on the Gryffindor table that oddly reminded him of himself. He had the distracted look on his eyes that made him think that he was either trying to remember something or was gathering the courage to talk to someone. Either of the one was possible because Neville remembered having the same feeling before he made friends. He hoped that this kid could find happiness the way he did and that he would make friends like his who will stick with him all his life.
Headmistress McGonagall's voice brought Neville out of his reminiscing as she wished every student a happy and successful year ahead, warning everybody to stay out of trouble (He could swear he saw James wink at Fred when she said that), read the list of forbidden objects (Even McGonagall couldn't suppress an eye roll while speaking that) on the notice board put up by the caretaker Tom and finally not to go wandering in the Forbidden Forest (It's name is Forbidden Forest for a reason after all).
He wished them too, mentally, though he had a gut feeling that this year wouldn't go as smoothly as the previous ones because half the new students were almost exact copies of his batch mates and he never had a single year in Hogwarts which was peaceful to say the least.
These kids are a handful just like his batch mates and though he tried to look and feel wary he knew he couldn't because he liked the playful spark they had lit inside him.